The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Science & Nature => Topic started by: theinevitable on April 18, 2009, 08:45:47 pm
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So, I am doing a big ol' project about Wal-Mart's public relations campaign for my economic anthropology class. I am getting bogged down by how much I want to say, and I keep creating really horrible sentences with too many hyphenated words and things in scare-quotes. At least I get to talk a lot about the Protestant Work Ethic.
But in my research I stumbled upon this, the Wal-Mart cheer for Great Britain:
Give me a A!
Give me a S!
Give me a D!
Give me a A!
Give me a pocket tap!
(everyone taps one pocket)
Give me a profit tap!
(everyone taps the other pocket)
What's that spell?
ASDA.
I can't hear you
ASDA
Whose ASDA is it?
It's my ASDA!
Who's number one?
The Customer! Always!
Awesome.
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I have a sneaking suspicion this is not yet pervasive.
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I got the impression it is something they make employees do on training days or something similar? Not part of a long term marketing strategy (one hopes).
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wal*mart can kiss my asda
(sorry)
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It was inspired by the company cheers Sam Walton saw Korean companies doing every morning. The US version is a more normal "gimme a W, gimme an A..."
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On further reflection there's something kind of tragic about a chant that asks 'who's number 1' and the answer is 'not me, never me'
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this is what I am saying in my paper.
it is really interesting how they have created this mythology where wal-mart has become number one through hard work and efficiency, not at all by driving its competitors out of business, avoiding unionization, etc.
reading their history of the company and stuff is insane.
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If it's not too intrusive I might be kind of interested in reading this when you're done with it. I love this kind of stuff. Like that freaky american apparel story someone linked a few months back.
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I got the impression it is something they make employees do on training days or something similar? Not part of a long term marketing strategy (one hopes).
I'm pretty sure they haven't made any of the employees I know do it.
I wish they had. The aftermath would be extraordinary.
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I worked at Wal-Mart for a few months a few years back, and this was a daily requirement. I'm in the US, though, so the chant was the more traditional "Give me a W!" thing.
Two points to note:
1. When they get to the hyphen, they say "Give me a SQUIGGLY!!" "SQUIGGLY!!", and everyone has to wriggle suggestively.
2. After "Who's number one?" "Customer! Always!", you're supposed to do a fist pump and go "HOO-AH!!" like a Marine.
Just thought you'd like to know.
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Yes.
This class... sometimes we are reading some crazy social theorist, and I want to say "this is bullshit, this guy is just some crazy academic who wanted to make a name for himself."
And then I go out in the world and realize... it's all true.
Similar things happen when I watch comedies set in office buildings, etc.
IT'S REALLY LIKE THAT.
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case in point: Wal-Mart's webpage on Diversity is the most tone-deaf and heavy handed thing I have ever seen.
“We have put specific programs in place to ensure we have a talent pool of women and minorities who are well prepared for management jobs.”
"We put our diversity on display"
and to top it all off:
a link to a video of the "I Have a Dream" speech.
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Maybe this is what happens when people who are really good at working at wal mart finally make it to management positions? I mean a few of those assistant managers have to filter through to somewhere important eventually? Maybe the company has been around long enough that the people in charge are now people who drank the kool aid back in the day?
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the peter principle?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
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Similar things happen when I watch comedies set in office buildings, etc.
IT'S REALLY LIKE THAT.
The Office is not funny because it is absurd. It is funny because it is painfully realistic.
Pain..ful..ly
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I worked at Wal-Mart for a few months a few years back, and this was a daily requirement. I'm in the US, though, so the chant was the more traditional "Give me a W!" thing.
Two points to note:
1. When they get to the hyphen, they say "Give me a SQUIGGLY!!" "SQUIGGLY!!", and everyone has to wriggle suggestively.
2. After "Who's number one?" "Customer! Always!", you're supposed to do a fist pump and go "HOO-AH!!" like a Marine.
Just thought you'd like to know.
So at the ones that are open 24-hours do they just pick a random time to do this? Kind of like when shows that are on all year with no reruns still have a "season premier"
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So at the ones that are open 24-hours do they just pick a random time to do this?
I would think they do it at shift change, to fire the troops up for awesome customer satisfaction1
-JW
1stamp out any vestige of individual identity in the face of monolithic corporate branding
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This is where I chime in and wonder why so many folks hate the Wal-Mart, but seem to have mad love for Target, another giant faceless corporation?
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do people love Target? I have not experienced that.
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I certainly prefer Target to Wal-Mart, though that's dangerously close to damning it with faint praise.
At least Target doesn't REVEL in lowest common demoniatorship, eschews the giant flags and giant :) faces and great heaving aisles of books with pictures of Jesus on them telling you that you're a fuck*ng communist if you don't dumb yourself down to the mean, Harrison Bergeron-style... even if it is nearly just as jank-rate as The Wall. You know, sort of more comes off as K-Mart's brother's putting on airs of suburbia that aren't really that convincing.
Plus, the right colour coordination out of your existing wardrobe and you can pose as an employee and cause all kinds of trouble.
Not that I've... ever done that. Gosh, no. My time is far too valuable and... vital for such things.
Completely.
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This is where I chime in and wonder why so many folks hate the Wal-Mart, but seem to have mad love for Target, another giant faceless corporation?
I can only speak for myself, but I think it has to do with the quality of the goods available, the atmosphere of the stores and behavior of management.
Target generally has better stuff, they're clean and uncrowded. Wal-Mart has lousy customer service -- you can count on standing in a line for at least 5 minutes to check out. Never happens at Target. Wal-Mart treats its employees like shit. Target doesn't. I've never heard of Target selling censored versions of movies, books or CDs. Can't say that about Wal-Mart.
How's that for a start?
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Also if you look at statistics of market capitalization Wal-Mart is so far ahead that it is completely insane.
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Target is often on best employer-type lists. Wal-Mart is not. I don't love the Target, though.
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Other than the "Seasonal Items" aisle, I've never run into a section of Target that looked like the aftermath of the Vandal sacking of Rome. Minus the stacks of bodies and burning walls. The shoppers at Wal-Mart seem to lack the intellectual power to realize the picture on the box is of the product inside, and therefore must tear the packaging open to fumble at the contents. After a moment, the prize is forgotten and dropped to lie in the tangle of cords, shattered candy, and clothing tags that covers the floor.
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Target sells Jones Cream Soda.
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In class today half of the groups gave their presentations.
As proof of her assertion that we use clothes to define our image (who doubted her?) one girl showed a page from a catalog and said "would any of you wear these clothes? I didn't think so."
I am not sure what was wrong with the clothes. I guess they were mom-clothes. (I could tell this because of the models, not because of the clothes themselves.)
But the idea that she said that in a class, in a graded presentation, while wearing clothes that to me looked very similar to the clothes in the ad, is hilarious to me.
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You need one of those [citation needed] signs.
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I don't know about every Target location, but the three in my area are all very nice.
In addition to the other things already mentioned in this thread, Target knows how to make their operation look good, by which I mean aesthetically. The stores are not so disorientingly sprawling, the aisles are evenly spaced so as to prevent cramping, and the employees don't wear those gods-awful vests. And I prefer a cute puppy with an anatomically impossible fur pattern coloration over an omnipresent dimembodied head any day.
One of the few things Target does that bugs me is their practice of referring to employees as "team members" and customers as "guests". It is, as the philosopher Caulfield would say, "phony".
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Yes! Bull terrier!
We don't have Wal-mart where I live, so I have no basis for comparison. Our Target does have pretty long lines. But, bull terrier!
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We don't have Wal-mart where I live, so I have no basis for comparison.
We have a Wal-Mart out in Fairfax.
In the same shopping center as a Target.
Pls note: Do not come to Fairfax just to see Wal-Mart.
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Wal-Mart rules. On Tuesday I bought a machete and axe for seven bucks each.
It's a relatively long trip though, there are none in the city.
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Wal-Mart... the best place to find zombie fighting weapons and the best place to find zombies.
Wal-Mart... it all makes sense.
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(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y181/lprkn/zombietools.jpg)
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Yes! Bull terrier!
We don't have Wal-mart where I live, so I have no basis for comparison. Our Target does have pretty long lines. But, bull terrier!
(http://cfs9.tistory.com/image/25/tistory/2008/06/05/12/16/48475a898d50e)
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On further reflection there's something kind of tragic about a chant that asks 'who's number 1' and the answer is 'not me, never me'
Maybe there would be one if you just applied yourself.